LogFAQs > #958670573

My bet?

They didnt want to compete with themselves - Samus is a way more serious character than the rest of the cast at the time - she became an ugly duckingling around then, and Nintendo kind of rode the Pokmon Japan fixation people had lol, by making the characters more family friendly in general & they were planning on trying to use Metroid in the handheld market instead.

Funny, because GameCube off & went totally edgy in contrast.

And the Wii.... Was like a phenomenon. For all of like 8 years or whatever - Nintendo transformed.